ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan’s combative top judge made his most audacious foray into judicial activism yet on Tuesday, firing Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, emptying the Cabinet, and forcing President Asif Ali Zardari to reset his fragile governing coalition.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry’s order was the culmination of a three-year transformation that has injected the once supine Supreme Court into the heart of Pakistan’s power equation. Yet in doing so, Chaudhry has ventured deeply into the political fray, drawing accusations of partisan, even grudge-driven, prosecutions.